Parents and coaches alike struggle teaching inexperienced children rudimentary sporting skills; with baseball and softball in particular, teaching young players proper batting techniques is especially problematic. Currently, adults utilize techniques ranging from the rudimentary tactic of drawing lines or placing bats in the dirt, to holding players' ankles in fixed positions with hands or cords.
Other known techniques rely on more complicated instructional devices, which are generally not effective for teaching correct foot placement, stance, stride or swing characteristics to inexperienced or poorly trained children. As children become more experienced and independent, they tend to replicate substandard techniques learned from others, utilize the same incomplete or ineffective instructional devices with which they are familiar, and/or attempt to teach themselves with no practical guidance.
Also, versatility and ease of use critical to any foot placement, batting stance, stride and swing tool are not satisfactorily addressed by the prior art. For example, some current devices are incomplete, failing to address one or more of these key batting skills; are too heavy or bulky or difficult to assemble/disassemble; and/or are not capable of adjusting to the sizes or needs of different children or children as they grow.
Moreover, most current devices rely solely upon a neutral stance option, with no option for an open or closed stance. Even devices allowing for an angled stance fail to account for proper stride alignment. As those of skill in the pertinent arts will readily appreciate, however, different types of stances can affect how far a batter can reach over the plate and how well the batter can see pitches. As children age and grow, progressing from non-pitch to pitch baseball, stance becomes increasingly important, and provides more experienced batters with tactical advantages that enhance their individual skill sets.
Additionally, many devices stand several inches off the ground (measured from the base to a stance position), which is sub-optimal for younger or less experienced batters. Because such devices attempt to show batters to step back at the pitcher with their lead foot, the height of the devices impart a significant risk for injury to younger players with less developed senses of balance and timing.
Given the limitations in the current art, there is need for a device which is lightweight, safe and adaptable for every child within the targeted user spectrum, which can be used to teach or learn proper foot placement, batting stance, stride and swing.